Curriculum Vitae

Education:

Qualifications:

Work History:

University of Reading (2004-2007), Diamond Light Source (2007 – Now)

Current Job:

Software Scientist

Employer:

Diamond Light Source

Favourite thing to do in my job: Writing software which other scientists use is quite demanding, but there is nothing better than when it helps them to understand tricky data which hopefully leads to great science being done.

My work

I write computer programs to analyse the data that other scientists collect from the Diamond Synchrotron

My work is mainly in 2 software projects, the GDA (Generic Data Acquisition) and the SDA (Scientific Data Analysis)

The GDA (shown here working on a beamline) is used by scientists who are collecting data at Dimaond Light Source to plan and run their experiments.

Here is a closeup of the GDA running and looking at some data from one of the beamlines

The SDA is used by the scientists once they have collected the data, and s a tool to help them understand what the data they have collected actualy means. The images below are from a poster I presented at a conference in Paris earlier this year.

My Typical Day

Each day is different, but in general I spend about half of my time writing software, and the other half communicating between many of the other scientists and engineers around Diamond.

We have an computer calender system at STFC which is invaluable for helping me with what i need to do in a day. I work as part of a team of about 25 Scientists and Engineers who write all the software that the scientists who come to Diamond Light Source interact with. This team needs to communicate a lot, so every week I will go to 5 short meetings (15 mins) and 2 long meetings (1:30) purely to make sure the software being developed is consistant and relevent.

I will also then generaly go to several hours of meeting with the scientists who run the beamlines at Diamond, this is to collect information about the science that is being done, and then focus our software on these tasks.

Thats it for meetings, but I do end up going to beamlines on a regular basis to fix problems and help with collecting and analyising data which the users are collecting, this includes running training courses for our staff so they know best how to get things done.

When all of this is done, I spend the rest of my time writing software.

If nothing else there is never a dull moment 🙂

What I'd do with the prize money

I like to help students understand how programming and engineering are used in lots of scientific areas, a superb tool to help with this would be a LEGO Mindstorms educational pack and some accessories.

When we visit schools to talk about what we do, it would be really useful to be able to demonstrate how we collect data. With a lego mindstorms kit, I can connect the software we use to control the experiments to it, and conduct models of those experiments, to show exactly what we do.

In fact we already use lego on one of the beamlines for holding samples!

My Interview

How would you describe yourself in 3 words?

enthusiastic friendly scientist

What's the best thing you've done in your career?

I wrote some software that allowed a colleague at univeristy to solve a problem with some experimental data they had.

Were you ever in trouble at school?

Not really, but I was aweful at doing homework on time!

Who is your favourite singer or band?

Listen to the radio mostly, so whetevers on :)

What is the most fun thing you've done?

Flying a powered glider solo, Terrifying but Terrific!

If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!

I’d love to explore the solar system, so that would definatly be one, number 2 would be some more funding for science in general, especialy renewable energy research and I guess the final one would be for 3 more wishes :)